Dometic Patrol 35: Always keep your (beverages) cool

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Features: highly insulated – large drain – freezer seal – easy access – tough design – convenient multi-use dock for cup holder/bottle/fishing rod

Price: 229.99 compared to Yeti 35 at $275.00. Boom!

Having grown up in the Midwest, I haven’t always had access to the gorgeous landscape that inspires outdoor outings, camping trips and flyfishing in the mountains. Over the past decade, I have lived in the more mountainous regions of Colorado, and more recently the Pacific Northwest.

One of my favorite ways to decompress after a stretch of busy work and the hustle bustle of urban life is with an escape to the mountains, cracking open an ice-cold beverage and casting a line into the mountain streams. One of the worst feelings in that scenario is getting to your destination after a couple of hours of driving and realizing half your ice is already melted and may not last the duration of your trip, be it just overnight or a few nights.

With that said, I made sure to give my Dometic Patrol 35 Insulated Ice Chest its best possible chance at success by following the cardinal rules of packing a cooler. I made sure to prep the cooler by getting it cold with some ice in advance as well as only packing it 1/3 the way with food and beverages which were also kept in the refrigerator, then filling the other 2/3 with ice. I wasn’t able to fully optimize the ice melt situation by using a block of ice, since I actually wanted the ice to keep the contents cold, not itself, so I used the smaller ice cubes you get in a grocery store bag of ice. I did however try to limit the amount of times I opened the cooler to get things out and allow warm air into the cooler. With these pieces of knowledge at my disposal, the cooler was able to keep the ice in its form for a solid 2 days before it started melting. This trip to the mountains wasn’t a 5- or 10-day excursion, but rather just for a weekend. After I brought the cooler home, I let it sit just to test out how long the ice would last. I think around day 4 is when it started becoming more water than ice, but still very cold. Overall, the cooler did very well for me over my mountain escape, keeping my beverages ice-cold, just the way I like them.

Pros: This cooler is easily comparable to the Yeti 35 if you treat your cooler right, while saving yourself about $45 on average and it’s available in a variety of colors. To each their own.

Cons: I do think that one of the features of this product is also a detriment – the “easy access” rubber latch that only requires one hand to open. Why don’t I love it? Because the seal it creates isn’t as tight.

Overall: I’m a bag fan of the Dometic Patrol 35, especially at its competitive price point.